“Ah, those early days that everyone likes to think of now since we have grown so much bigger; that early zeal, that early romance, that early companionableness! And how delightful it is to think that the young ones who came into the work now find the same joy in community. It is a permanent revolution, this Catholic Worker Movement.”

For me, and perhaps for many of you as well, the Easter season has felt very full in all the best ways. Our Catholic Worker community here in South Bend always celebrates Easter Sunday with a potluck on the front lawn, an Easter egg hunt for the children, and LOTS of singing out of the Gather hymnal (plus a couple of Irish tunes in recent years). The following week, a few of us had the chance to travel and visit the Bloomington Christian Radical CW community for the Feast of the Annunciation and the total solar eclipse. Our hosts, Ross and Andrea, welcomed about twenty friends for more music, a painting and scrubbing work party at one of their houses of hospitality, and a picnic lunch. Together we watched from the front lawn of their row of community houses as the sky dimmed and all but the bright corona of light was blotted out. In those few minutes of darkness, I felt such gratitude for the gift of community and the ways that my life has been shaped by the decade I have spent with the Catholic Worker movement. To each and every member of this joyful, permanent revolution, we offer our warmest congratulations and thanks!

Latest news from the Dorothy Day Guild and friends:

Last month, we welcomed Catholic Worker artists Sarah Fuller, Rachel Mills, and Becky McIntyre for an April 9th webinar on art, hospitality, and activism. We were so moved by their comments on the creative process and art as a gift to be offered in service of the common good. Dorothy nurtured the creative talents and artistic vocations of many of the young people who came through the Catholic Worker, particularly Ade Bethune and Rita Corbin.

It has been so inspiring to see how another generation of artists has taken up the mantle of a prophetic artistic practice which counsels the doubtful, instructs the ignorant, admonishes the sinner, comforts the sorrowful, and breathes beauty into the world. If you missed the live event, don’t worry! We recorded the conversation and will be uploading it to our YouTube channel soon, so stay tuned.

Finally, our co-chair, Dr. Kevin Ahern, along with colleagues at nine Catholic colleges and universities, organized a conference at the Center at Mariandale in Mariandale, NY on April 13th celebrating Dorothy’s spirituality. The day-long gathering featured keynote addresses by Guild advisory committee members Robert Ellsberg and Martha Hennessy as well as student-led workshops on pacifism, the cultivation of the scholar-worker, Dorothy’s message for a digital age, and the continuing legacy of the Catholic Worker movement. Many thanks to all of the presenters and organizers and our hosts at Mariandale for an inspiring and thought-provoking Saturday!

Upcoming Guild events:

Article round-up:

We’ve enjoyed seeing Dorothy’s story and witness inspire a variety of different writers this season, and there has in fact been so much news that we’re a little behind in sharing it with you! Back in March, the Boston Pilot published brief introduction to Dorothy’s legacy and canonization cause by Russell Shaw, entitled “Radically Catholic: Dorothy Day fought poverty, injustice.” The Mormon Deseret News also published a Dorothy-inspired reflection in March, this one by Jennifer Graham, called “The case for setting up a ‘Christ-room’ in your home,” which was actually a response to a February essay by Jeffrey Wald in Plough. It’s wonderful to see Dorothy’s legacy of hospitality prompting ecumenical dialogue on our responsibilities to the most vulnerable members of our local communities, and it is incredibly inspiring to hear of ordinary families adopting small practices drawn from the Catholic Worker tradition in order to better welcome Christ into their homes and the heart of their households.

We’d also like to share two recent pieces from members of our Dorothy Day Guild advisory committee. The first an article about the Catholic Worker farm run by Carmina Chapp and her husband, “Life on Farm Named for Dorothy Day Helps Catholic Couple Deepen Faith, Glorify God,” and the second is a recording of a recent talk that Martha Hennessy offered to students at Sacred Heart University, entitled “Dorothy Day and Jesus: Discipleship Today.” The Dorothy Day Guild has been so blessed by the guidance and support of the advisory committee since our founding in 2005, and we continue to be inspired by the work that each of them has undertaken in living out Dorothy’s witness of nonviolence and voluntary poverty in unique and creative ways.

Last month, many of us in the United States likely filed our federal and state taxes, perhaps disturbed by the knowledge that over a trillion dollars of that money goes straight to funding war and violence at home and abroad. We were so intrigued when Bridget Crawford, a law professor at Pace University reached out to us and sent us a copy of her article “Yesterday’s Protester May Be Tomorrow’s Saint: Reimagining the Tax System Through the Work of Dorothy Day.” Crawford and her co-author Ted Afield ask in the abstract, 

"When is the nonpayment of taxes justified by conscientious objections? Legendary Catholic social activist Dorothy Day refused to pay federal income taxes, because she was an avowed pacifist who also cautioned against government overreach into the lives of citizens. This article asks whether the tax system should accommodate those who have moral objections, and if so, how to accomplish that. Through the lens of Dorothy Day, who devoted her adult life to workers’ rights, pacifism, and service to the poor, this article makes three contributions to the conversation about the administration of a fair tax system."

We were delighted to see a serious exploration of Dorothy’s moral thought in a very different discipline than what we’re accustomed to reading and we encourage you to check it out (and if you’re interested in becoming a war tax resister like Dorothy, reach out to the folks at the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee)!

Finally, we have so appreciated artist Kristi Pfister’s generosity in allowing us to keep her installation “Radical Action: Tracing Dorothy Day” on display at the Manhattan College library through this summer. If you are unfamiliar with Kristi’s work, check out the article published in the Tablet this week, “Life and Work of Dorothy Day is Captured in an N.Y. Artist’s Work,” by Alicia Venter.

Prayer requests:

A few words from Dorothy:

Finally, we’d like to close this missive with a selection from Dorothy’s inaugural editorial for The Catholic Worker, offered to the poor and unemployed for the first time on this day in 1933:

"For those who are sitting on benches in the warm spring sunlight.

For those who are huddling in shelters trying to escape the rain.

For those who are walking the streets in the all but futile search for work.

For those who think that there is no hope for the future, no recognition of their plight, THE CATHOLIC WORKER is being edited. It is printed to call their attention to the fact that the Catholic Church has a social program.

It’s time there was a Catholic paper printed for the unemployed. The fundamental aim of most radical sheets is the conversion of its readers to radicalism and atheism.

Is it not possible to be radical without being atheistic?

Is it not possible to protest, to expose, to complain, to point out abuses and demand reforms without desiring the overthrow of religion?

In an attempt to popularize and make known the encyclicals of the popes and the program offered by the Church for the constructing of a social order, this news sheet was started.

…The price of the paper is one cent a copy, in order to place it within the reach of all. And for the unemployed it is distributed free to those who wish to read it. Next month someone may donate us an office, who knows? It is cheering to remember that Jesus Christ wandered this earth with no place to lay His head. The foxes have holes and the birds of the air their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. And when we consider our fly-by-night existence, our uncertainty, we remember (with pride at sharing the honor) that the disciples supped by the seashore and wandered through cornfields picking the ears from the stalks to make their frugal meals."

So many people today find themselves in a similar context to the first readers of The Catholic Worker ninety one years ago. Every day on the news and social media we see images of refugees and internally displaced persons from Gaza, Ukraine, the Central African Republic, and elsewhere struggling to survive another day of war and genocide. In the United States, many new immigrants arrive desperate for dignified work which can support their families and which cannot be found in their home countries. In your own town or city, you likely know neighbors who are at risk of eviction or who are already unhoused. Today, as in 1933, and as in 1900 years before that, the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. In her lifetime, Dorothy saw that the world could be different than it was. For the next fifty years, she offered her strength and her talents for the construction of the social order that she read about in scripture and the encyclicals and dreamed about in her newspaper office, in the first house of hospitality, in jail, and on the picket line. It’s a privilege to dream with her, and with all of you. From all of us at the Dorothy Day Guild, thank you for the many ways you have offered your strength, your gifts, and labor in service of this new world which is being built in the shell of the old.

Happy May Day.

In peace,

Dr. Casey Mullaney, on behalf of the Dorothy Day Guild